1. Bank of Baroda became the 3rd largest bank after its merger with Dena Bank & Vijaya Bank
- On April 1, 2019 merger of three banks came into effect.
- Thus with this BOB became the India's second largest public sector bank and third largest commercial bank after SBI and HDFC.
2. Reliance Mutual Fund launched voice based financial transactions
- Reliance Nippon Life Asset Management has joined hands with Google to enable customers of Reliance mutual Fund to carry out voice-based financial transactions.
- Thus RNAM became the first company in India to provide conversational onterface which would help customers regarding fund transactions.
3. Kotak Mahindra Bank became the first lender to charge for UPI transactions
- The bank said it is going to levy charges on peer-to-peer (P2P) UPI transactions available across all platforms, namely, Paytm, Google Pay, PhonePe, Trucaller Pay among others starying from 1st of May, 2019.
- For each bank account first 30 UPI fund transfers will be free.
- Rs 2.50 would be charged for an amount value below or equal to Rs 1000 and Rs 5 for payment above Rs 1000.
4. Government has infused Rs 205 crore into Bank of Maharashtra
- After infusion, the shareholding of government in Bank of Maharashtra has increased to 87.74 % from 87.01%.
- The bank has issued and allotted its 15,47,16,981 equity shares at an issue price of Rs 13.25 per share to the govt.
5. RBI sets WMA(Ways and Means Advances) Limit for Government at Rs 75000 crore for the first half of the FY 2019-20
- Reserve Bank may trigger fresh floatation of market loans when government of India utilises 75% of WMA limit.
- WMA is a temporary loan facility provided by RBI to center and state governments.
- It was introduced in 1997 to meet any temporary mismatches in the receipts and paymets to the government.
6. First Bi-monthly Monetary Policy Statement for 2019-20-RBI cut repo rate by 25 basis points
- Reduced Repo Rate by 25 basis points to 6.0% from 6.25% with immediate effect.
- Reverse Repo Rate adjusted to 5.75%.
- Marginal Standing Facility and Bank Rate adjusted to 6.25%.
- GDP growth projected at 7.2%.
- MPC maintained neutral stance.
7. Karnataka Bank has signed agreement With Bharti AXA For Insurance Products
- It has been signed to distribute Bharti AXA's life insurance products to provide insurance solutions to customers of Karnataka Bank.
- It will facilitate wide choices of life insurance products to its customers across all its 836 branches of bank supported by the customer centric products of the insurance company.
8. RBI has tweaked LCR norms to boost liquidity
- It has been tweaked to provide an additional 2% window to lenders.
- It will harmonise liquidity requirements of banks and release additional money for lending.
9. Lakshmi Vilas Bank to merge with Indiabulls Housing Finance
- The merged entity will be known as Indiabulls Lakshmi Vilas Banks.
- It will be among the top 8 private banks in India by size and profitability.
